Blake's 7: Warship REVIEW

AUDIO REVIEW The malcontent seven ride again

The US TV reboot of cult BBC space adventure Blake’s 7 may still be in development, but Big Finish’s range of B7 audio releases get a major boost here with its first full-cast drama. Warship reunites most of the show’s original cast (Peter Tuddenham, voice of Zen and Orac, is sadly no longer with us), while also filling an important hole in B7 continuity by finally showing how freedom fighter Roj Blake (Gareth Thomas) left the crew of the Liberator, an event that occurred offscreen between seasons two and three, thanks to Thomas’s abrupt departure from the show.

The story here fills in the action after season two’s epic finale “Star One”. With a deadly alien fleet poised to unleash destruction across the Federation, the only thing standing in its way is the Liberator, but the crew has plenty of other problems on their hands – including an attack from alien limpet-mines, and the dangerous attentions of Servalan (Jacqueline Pearce)…

Warship captures the correct mix of edgy characterisation and charmingly dated sci-fi, fitting seamlessly with the style of the original series while also giving the cast plenty to do. Paul Darrow once again steals the show as the brainy and amoral Avon, but while this is certainly a must-buy for fans, it’s also extremely talky, and the multi-stranded story struggles to cohere at times. There’s an unavoidable sense of “joining the narrative dots” to Warship , but despite its flaws there’s still plenty of nostalgic, old-fashioned SF entertainment to be found here.